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The Story of The Paltz 



Being A 
Brief History of New Paltz, N. Y 



A COMPILATION 




NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN 



r 






H* 



GLuJULinu 



to the brave huguenots who found 

the Wallkill Valley, 

to the men and women who have loved 

the shawangunks, 

to all who may come to dwell in the 

shadow of our hills, 

this booklet is dedicated, with a 

Prayer, 

that the religious fervor of 

our forefathers 

may dwell in this valley forever. 



Our Ancestors 

THE mountains hem us in. Beyond the 
mountains lies the world — a turbulent 
world of storm and struggle and oppor- 
tunity. But the sturdy Shawangunks lift up 
their blue barrier and hold it back so that we in 
little old New Paltz can sleep on beside the 
drowsy Wallkill almost as we slept two hundred 
years ago. 

We love our mountain with its patchwork 
sides of cultivated fields and woodland and its 
rugged crown of rocks. It is beautiful in autumn 
when lines of blazing sumac mark the fence rows 
and its woods are the color of wine and mahog- 
any; and in winter when the glow of sunrise 
and the mists that creep up from the lowlands 
paint its blanket of snow with rose and amethyst. 
But we love it best in June when the woods are 
the fresh green of early summer and the wind 
goes billowing through its fields of daisies and 
yellow ripening grain. 

It was in June two centuries and a half ago 
that Catharine DuBois clambered wearily up 
and down its steep sides and all about her the 



laurel must have been bursting into bloom. 
But she had little heart for the beauty of it 
then, with Baby Jacques pressed close in her 
arms, for they were captives of the Indians and 
the story of their rescue is the story of how New 
Paltz came to be settled by our ancestors. Yes, 
the stranger must summer and winter our moun- 
tain and then he will begin to understand why 
our peace-loving forefathers tarried on in the 
valley at its feet for generation after generation 
with little inclination to drift back into the 
world outside. For a harsh, cruel world it had 
been to them for many a long year, driven as 
they had been from pillar to post and from post 
to pillar because of their religious belief. 

Cruelly persecuted, they had fled from their 
sunny, native France to the Palatinate in Ger- 
many where they found safety for a time. Soon 
the soldiers of the wicked French King crossed 
the border and began harassing the poor Hugue- 
nots there and so our ancestors made their way 
to Holland and one by one or in small family 
groups set sail for the New World in some such 
slow sailing Dutch craft as carried Hendrick 
Hudson a little more than half a century before. 
In the New World which had beckoned them 
with such fair promises they did find what they 



wanted most — freedom to worship God — from 
the very beginning, but they scarcely found 
peace. One day Louis DuBois, the leader of 
the men who afterward settled New Paltz, 
came home to find his house in ashes and his 
wife and three little children gone, stolen by the 
Indians. 

When Louis with his wife and children, fresh 
from the sea voyage, had hurried up the Hudson 
to Wiltwyck (Kingston) to join his wife's family 
there, he found the little Dutch trading-post 
just emerging from the throes of what history 
calls "The First Esopus Indian War." It had 
gone hard enough with the little settlement in 
the wilderness, but the white men had brought 
it all upon themselves, for, as usual, the poor 
Indian was more sinned against than sinning. 
The old chiefs had given warning time and time 
again that they could not be responsible for their 
young braves when under the influence of liquor, 
yet still the whiskey flowed freely, for the clink 
of money in the till then as now was more per- 
suasive than the oratory of sachems. But it 
seems that selling the Indians fire water was 
not enough. One night a party of young braves 
who had been husking corn for a Wiltwyck 
farmer got into a drunken frolic. They had 



built a fire by the side of a brook and were hav- 
ing a glorious time all by themselves, hair-pulling, 
and howling at the top of their voices so loudly 
that the noise was heard within the stockade 
at Wiltwyck. Although some soldiers who 
went out to reconnoitre brought back word as 
to the harmless nature of the disturbance, ten 
young Dutchmen sallied out and attempted to 
massacre the savages as they lay sleeping about 
their fire. This was the final act of injustice, 
the last straw as it were, to bring on the war. 

As soon as peace was declared and it was safe 
to leave the stockade and think again about 
the planting and gathering of crops, Governor 
Stuyvesant having been petitioned for more of 
the fertile untimbered lowlands where the In- 
dians had raised corn and beans, a "New Village" 
(Hurley) was started a few miles south of Wilt- 
wyck. And here Louis DuBois settled with 
Matthew Blanshan, his wife's father, and An- 
toine Crispell, his brother-in-law, all of them 
God-fearing Huguenots who doubtless had found 
little to their liking in the riotous trading-post 
at Wiltwyck where the streets resounded from 
morning to night with the clattering tongues of 
the Dutch housewives and from night to morn- 
ing with the brawls of drunken sailors. 






LOWLANDS OF WALLKILL 



But peace was not for them yet. One day, 
it was June 7, 1663, the men came home from 
the lowlands to find every house in the village 
destroyed by fire, only the smouldering ashes, 
an unfinished barn, a rick and a stack of reeds 
to show that a village had been there. Not a 
living soul was there to welcome them and tell 
the tale, only three dead men who lay where 
they had fallen. As for the women and chil- 
dren, they had been carried off, prisoners of the 
Indians, and it seemed that immediate death 
might be a fate to be preferred. Wiltwyck had 
suffered too, though not so deeply, for help came 
before the savages had time to finish their work 
there; but in all from the two villages some 
forty-five women and children were missing, 
and doughty old Governor Stuyvesant lost no 
time in hurrying up from New Amsterdam Capt. 
Martin Kregier with all the soldiers he could 
muster for the rescue. For he knew, down deep 
in his heart, that if he had kept his promise to 
the Red Men, to pay them for the lowland-gar- 
dens he had taken from them to give to the set- 
tlers at the New Village, and if he had not been 
so hasty about sending twenty of their number, 
prisoners of the recent war, to be slaves in the un- 
healthy island of Curacoa — the deepest insult he 



could inflict upon freedom-loving savages — they 
never would have committed this last outrage. 

Before the soldiers arrived Louis and his 
comrades tried to do what they could to seek 
out the whereabouts of their loved ones, but 
little was accomplished for the woods were so 
thick that even Kit Davis, the local "pathfin- 
der," as soon as he left the waterways lost him- 
self though only a few miles from the stockade; 
moreover there was constant danger of being 
surprised by the Indians. But one thing they 
did do. Every evening Domine Blom led his 
little congregation to the four corners of the 
fort and there under the blue sky offered up 
prayer that the absent ones might be returned. 

Early in July the soldiers reached Wiltwyck 
and then one expedition after another was made 
into the wilderness wherever news could be 
obtained of an Indian encampment. Some- 
times they returned empty handed, sometimes 
with booty, blankets, kettles and sewan and a 
few Indians whom they had captured. Now 
and then they succeeded in rescuing a white 
captive. One long and arduous journey they 
made with wagons and cannon and a force of 
over two hundred men through swamps and 
over mountains to the Indian fortress at War- 




SHAWANGUNK KILL AT NEW FORT 



warsing where they destroyed the great Council- 
house of all the Esopus Indian clans. It had 
been rumored that the majority of the white 
prisoners were kept here, but the fort had been 
abandoned j ust before the rescuing party reached 
it. And so the summer dragged on and Louis 
as he returned from one expedition after an- 
other must have been growing almost hopeless 
of ever seeing his wife and children again. Then, 
when it seemed that no stone had been left un- 
turned, word was brought by a friendly Wappin- 
ger Indian that the Red Men were guarding a 
large party of prisoners at Shawangunk where 
they were building a new fort to replace the old 
one at Warwarsing which the soldiers had de- 
stroyed. It was early in September. It had 
been raining for days and the streams were all 
swollen to overflowing when Capt. Kregier set 
out with the Wappinger for guide and a party 
of fifty men; and we know that Louis was among 
them, though the Captain does not mention by 
name the "seven freemen" who accompanied 
the soldiers. 

And what of Catharine all these months? 
History gives us no word of her but it is not 
hard to picture her those first sad days of her 
captivity as she bravely trudged along through 



the green woods beside her captors with Baby- 
Jacques in her arms and little Abraham and Isaac 
clinging to her skirts. All the way to the Indian 
stronghold at Warwarsing we think she was 
driven, and then when late in July news was 
brought that the soldiers were coming she was 
hurried away with the other prisoners to this 
Indian settlement on the banks of the Shawan- 
gunk Kill. Here the Indians soon began to 
build a new stronghold. Every evening the 
prisoners were carried off into the woods lest 
a rescuing party might surprise the fort in the 
night. 

One day early in September a panic seized 
the Red Men, a fear that the soldiers were 
surely coming again. They could retreat no 
farther, for they depended on their corn and 
beans to carry them through the winter and all 
their other plantations the soldiers had already 
destroyed. Very well! They had taken good 
care of these white women and children. But 
if they were to be thwarted in their plans to hold 
them as hostages until their own brothers who 
had been shipped as slaves to Curacoa should 
be returned to them, there was still time to take 
a bitter revenge. 

So squaws were sent out to gather faggots and 

10 




BASHA SPRING ON BANK OF SHAWANGUNK KILL 



they were laid in piles. The white women were 
brought forward. All was ready. The light 
had only to be applied. Then it was that 
Catharine began to sing: 

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we 
wept when we remembered Zion. 

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst 
thereof. 

For there they that carried us away captive required of 
us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, 
saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion." 

She sang while the savages stood motion- 
less around. Perhaps she had sung to them 
so before for their amusement, and they had 
demanded it once more for the last time; 
perhaps she had a presentiment that her res- 
cuers were near and she must do something, 
anything to gain time; perhaps she did it only 
to keep up courage to the end. All at once a 
shot rang out on the September air and some 
strange hounds nosed through the circle of lis- 
teners. Then the savages with a terrified cry, 
"White men's dogs!" rushed to seize their wea- 
pons but the soldiers were so close upon them 
that resistance was in vain and the chief and 
many of his warriors were slain. 

All this we know from the stories which have 
come down to us from the days of Louis. They 

11 



tell, moreover, how the rescuing party, in the 
words of the Wappinger guide, followed the 
"first Big Water" (Rondout Kill) till they came 
to the second (Wall Kill), and the second till 
they came to the third (Shawangunk Kill). 
How Louis, always pressing in advance of the 
soldiers, killed with his sword an Indian scout 
at Liberty ville just as he was about to let fly 
his deadly arrow. How he shot another Indian, 
a squaw, getting water at a spring in the hillside 
below the fort. And the spring bears her name, 
Basha, to this very day. 

Journeying leisurely back toward Wiltwyck 
with his little family about him, his fears for 
the future lulled by the happiness of the 
present, Louis must have been attracted by 
the fertility of the lowlands along the Wall- 
kill and the hope was born that some day he 
and a company of friends might start the nucleus 
of a French settlement there. But it was not 
until fourteen years afterwards and the colony 
of New York had passed from the hands of the 
Dutch to the English, and Abraham and Isaac 
were men grown, that he saw his hopes realized. 
Edmund Andross was at that time Governor of 
New York and there was at Hurley a young 
Huguenot, Abraham Hasbrouck, who had served 

12 



t ~4 * »*, 




■ 



^ \AS&^ 



with Andross in the English army. Through 
him a patent for a large tract of land lying 
between the Shawangunk Mountains and the 
Hudson River, its four corners being Moggonck 
(Mohonk), Juffrou's Hook (the point in the 
Hudson where the town line between Lloyd 
and Marlborough strikes the river), Rapoos 
(an island in the Hudson near the estate of 
Judge Parker) and Tower a Taque (a point 
3f white rock in the Shawangunks near 
Rosendale Plains), was granted Louis and his 
two oldest sons, Abraham and Isaac, and nine 
3ther Huguenots who had settled in Hurley, — 
Christian Deyo, Abraham Hasbrouck, Andries 
LeFevre, Jean Hasbrouck, Pierre_ Deyo, Louis 
Bevier, Antoine Crispell, Hugo Frere and Simon 
LeFevre. 

Louis had not forgotten the trouble at the 
Sew Village because the Indians received noth- 
ng but promises for the land which was taken 
Tom them. And so in May 1677, four months 
Defore the New Paltz patent was granted by 
;he Governor, the land was duly purchased of 
:he Indians. And this is the price that was 
}aid: — forty kettles, ten large, thirty small; 
? orty axes; forty adzes; forty shirts; four hun- 
Ired fathoms of white net-work; three hundred 



13 



fathoms of black net-work; sixty pairs of stock 
ings, half small sizes; one hundred bars of lead 
one keg of powder; one hundred knives; fou: 
kegs of wine; forty oars; forty pieces of "duffel' 
(heavy woolen cloth); sixty blankets; one hun 
dred needles; one hundred awls; one measure 
of tobacco; two horses, one stallion, one mare 
Besides they were to pay every year as rent t< 
a government official at the redoubt in Esopus 
five bushels of good winter wheat. 

Early the next spring these Patentees lef 
Hurley with their families to establish on tin 
banks of the Wallkill their new home, whicl 
they called New Paltz in memory of the ol( 
Palatinate on the Rhine which had given then 
refuge before they fled to the New World. 



14 




MEMORIAL HOUSE 




OLD FORT 



Our Houses 

WITH their household goods stowed away 
in three big carts, our ancestors chose 
for their first camp-ground the lowlands 
on the west side of the WallkilL These low- 
lands, like those most fertile along the Esopus 
and Shawangunk Kills, had probably been 
cleared of timber many years before by the 
Indians to be used for plantations of corn and 
beans. But when the Patentees came to build, 
advised by the friendly Indians, they chose the 
other side of the river where the spring freshets 
could not bother them. The first cabins were 
probably built where the old stone houses still 
stand on Huguenot Street, skirting the river 
rather closely (for a running stream was a 
necessary convenience to a French housewife on 
wash days) and yet well out of reach of high 
water. They were of logs with stone chimneys, 
none too commodious, but homes of sufficient 
comfort for the demands of the times. All the 
men worked together to build their houses as 
well as to cultivate the crops. 

First of all to be built and largest of all was 

15 



the house of Louis, which stood half way fron 
either end of the street and was to be used as s 
fort in case of an attack by the Indians, fo: 
Gov. Andross had granted the Patentees per 
mission to settle on their newly acquired land 
only "Provided they build a Redoute there firsl 
for a place of Retreat and Safeguard upon Oc 



casion." 



Some ten or twelve years later the cabins wer< 
enlarged, but it was not until a generation aftei 
the settling of New Paltz that the stone house* 
on Huguenot Street which are still standing 
to-day, were built. Though some of them hav< 
been enlarged and in other ways altered, all have 
kept their characteristic dignity, simplicity anc 
strength, which style speaks to us eloquently oi 
the spirit of their builders. 

The Memorial House was built in 1712 bj 
Jean Hasbrouck, the Patentee. It is of gen- 
erous proportions even for modern times, anc 
Jean, as he intended, had plenty of room tc 
store away in the attic under the steeply sloping 
rafters as much as a granary would hold of har- 
vested grain. The house remained for genera- 
tion after generation in the Hasbrouck family, 
the north front room being used by them dur- 
ing Revolutionary times as a store. The bai 

16 




ELTING HOMESTEAD 





IflKit', 












m...^ 


i^r^i^ 


•c^Ljl 






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Sri- 


S 91 '— m w 


iP^Lv 









HOME OF ABRAHAM HASBROUCK 



which did duty when West India rum was as 
necessary a commodity as goose shot or molasses 
may still be seen in the attic. 

Next on the site of the first "Redoute," we 
have the Fort, the home of the descendants of 
Louis. He had died before the date of its build- 
ing which was 1705, attested to by the iron 
figures on the gable end toward the street. 
This house must have been indeed a refuge of 
hospitality for the whole community. It was 
here that the cousins who rode in from the sur- 
rounding country on winter Sundays were wont 
to repair before entering the cold unheated 
church, to fill their little footstoves with glow- 
ing coals from the big fireplace. But to seek 
refuge here from an enemy was never necessary 
and never a shot was fired in defense from the 
blinking portholes, for the Indians who had been 
kindly treated from the beginning gave nothing 
but kindness in return. 

Across the street from the Fort is the 
Elting Homestead. Built either by the Pat- 
entee, Louis Bevier, or his son Samuel, it 
passed about 1740 into the possession of Capt. 
Josiah Elting, the most prominent man of 
Dutch ancestory in the community, and here 
during Revolutionary times his son, Roelif J., 

17 



ran a rival store to the Hasbroucks. Under 
the cellar in the Elting House may still be 
found the old sub-cellar or wine cellar where in 
olden times liquors were kept safe from pilfer- 
ing slaves. 

The House of Abraham Hasbrouck, the 
Patentee, stands some distance north of the 
Elting Homestead across the street from our 
present church edifice. If we wish an apprecia- 
tive realization of the antiquity of our old 
houses we have only to keep in mind the fact 
that this Abraham was the grandfather of Col. 
Jonathan Hasbrouck who built Washington's 
Headquarters at Newburgh. And it is equally 
gratifying to remember that a room in this same 
house, the kitchen of Wyntje, the widow of 
Abraham's son, whose six boys were own cousins 
to Col. Jonathan, was a famous place for cock- 
fighting. Indeed it is a relief to discover that 
some of our ancestors were as prone to the weak- 
nesses of the flesh as the rest of us. 

North of the Abraham Hasbrouck House 
the Freer Homestead built by Hugo, the Pat- 
entee, completes the list of old houses still 
standing on Huguenot Street. But we cannot 
have an adequate idea of the street as it was 
when these houses were new unless we picture at 

18 




FREER HOMESTEAD 



V \ 




11 



DEYO HOMESTEAD 



the head of the street, opposite the Memorial 
House the old Deyo Homestead whose walls 
are still standing although remodeled beyond 
recognition. A stone's throw to the south of 
the grassy triangle where the monument in 
honor of the Patentees has been erected, stood 
the first little stone church, square, with a steep 
roof crowned by a cupola from which a horn was 
sounded in lieu of a bell to summon worshippers 
to meeting. 



10 



Our Church 

AS THE history of the church has ever been 
j^\^ an index to the history of the times in 
which she lived, so the life of "The Re- 
formed Protestant Congregation of the New 
Paltz" in her varying fortunes reveals the life 
and thought of the people who dwelt near her 
altars. Although the New Paltz Reformed 
Church is a member of the Dutch Reformed de- 
nomination, she is separate from the other 
Reformed Churches in origin. It would not 
have been amiss to have given her a name which 
would have revealed her unique history. But 
those who gave her life did not stake spiritual 
energy upon a name. Whereas most of the 
Dutch Reformed churches sprang from the 
Dutch who came to America for gain, the New 
Paltz church claims as her forefathers those 
heroic souls known as Huguenots who fled from 
France because of religious intolerance, and who 
eventually came to America for religious free- 
dom, as the Puritans had done in their day. 
A church which was born, not as an incident in 

20 




MONUMENT ERECTED IN HONOR OF PATENTEES 



colonization for gain, but which was the life of 
the colonization movement, may well boast her 
origin. 

A glance at the names on the church records 
reveals the cradle in which the church was rock- 
ed. One of the common names is that of Le- 
Fevre. It cannot be traced back to the illus- 
trious Jacques LeFevre who fathered the Refor- 
mation in France, but it is no mean honor for 
a church to have sprung from the seed sown by 
that scholar. If his name has not been handed 
down to the New Paltz church, his teachings 
begat the men and women who came here as 
descendants of his in mind, at least. 

The severe persecutions in France drove the 
Huguenots forth, not knowing whither. Some 
fled to England, some to Holland and the Lower 
Palatinate, or "Pfalz", on the Rhine. From 
Pfalz, lured by the freedom of America, a num- 
ber came to Kingston, then known as Wiltwyck. 
From there it is but natural that they should 
have journeyed up the river which emptied 
into the Hudson at that point, and so no doubt 
the fertile valley through which the Wallkill 
flowed, was discovered. In 1677-8, the har- 
assed but noble band pitched their last tent 
where the village of New Paltz now is, and called 

21 



it home. Of this band we can sing as we are 
taught to sing of the Pilgrim band, — 

"Aye, call it holy ground, 

The soil where first they trod 
And left unstained what there they found, 
Freedom to worship God." 

The history of the church divides itself nat- 
urally into three periods, marked by the language 
in use. From 1677-8 until 1753 the French 
tongue was the language of the church and of 
necessity of the home and street. Toward the 
end of the period, there may have been a gradual 
giving way to the Dutch. During these four- 
score and more years the church had but three 
ministers, and these for short pastorates. In 
fact, Daille can hardly be called a minister of the 
church since he had the oversight of a number 
of churches. He was more of a domestic mis- 
sionary caring for several churches as classical 
missionaries do now. Before coming to America, 
Daill6 had been professor of theology in the 
seminary at Samur. It must have been a great 
boon to have listened to so cultured a voice 
crying in the wilderness of the New World. 
If the church has sought the ablest of men to 
lead throughout her history, the cause may be 
found in the impress Daille left upon the people. 

22 




FIRST STONE CHURCH 



For thirteen years this noble servant of God 
ministered to the little Huguenot church. He 
was succeeded by David DeBonrepos who served 
the church about four years, but who also could 
give but part of his time to the work in New 
Paltz. From 1700 to 1730 the people seem to 
have been without ministerial care. Near by 
ministers may have rendered occasional service. 
From 1731 to 1736 Johannes VanDriessen cared 
for the little Walloon flock. This unfortunate 
brother has been branded a schismatic by some 
of the church historians. He seems not to have 
been properly ordained and he is charged with 
having preached dangerous doctrine in a barn 
in Hurley. One wonders just what he said! 
Perhaps he spoke in condemnation of the con- 
vivial customs which graced barn raisings, or 
it may be that he urged the people to build a 
house of worship. It may have been easier to 
cry heresy than do the will of the minister! 
The event tells us also how far we have moved 
from the time when a man's ordination was of 
prime importance. VanDriessen served but 
five years, so his heretical ideas did not become 
engrafted. What is more noteworthy is the 
fact that with ministerial service denied more 
than sixty out of the eighty and more years, the 

23 



church grew and the religious life blossomed in 
service and character. The might which made 
Christianity triumphant in the first century, 
when preachers were few, but when the religious 
zeal was strong, was the might which kept the 
little band of Christians together in New Paltz 
amid very discouraging conditions. During 
those days the first public highway was built, 
not for commerce or for pleasure as they are 
built today, but that the people might go to 
church at New Paltz and Kingston. Better 
roads may be built today but no better motive 
ever actuated a people to construct a highway. 
In 1752 the Dutch period of the church begins 
and extends until the end of the century. The 
inability to secure French ministers and the 
close proximity to the Dutch doubtless compel- 
led the Huguenots to adopt the Dutch language. 
Let a little village keep up her mother tongue 
for nearly a century in the midst of a people 
speaking a different language, and they have 
waged no mean conflict. The Dutch period 
is marked by the Conferentia-Coetus dispute. 
These two parties in the church were what the 
Tories and Whigs were in politics. The Con- 
f erentia party held to the authority of the church 
across the sea. The Coetus party were for re- 

24 









SECOND STONE CHURCH 



^ 



-tJZ^Z 



ligious independence. As might have been ex- 
pected, the Dutch element of the church very 
largely composed the Conferentia wing in the 
church. The Huguenots were of the Coetus 
persuasion and wisely so. This split the church 
for a time. During this period a new church was 
built by the Coetus wing. This act illustrates 
the spirit of the people once more. Trials were 
but challenges which they eagerly accepted. 

From 1799 on, the English period begins. 
Rev. Meier who was called at that time, preach- 
ed alternately in Dutch and English. A note- 
worthy statement in his call was, — "to be paid 
in good and lawful money of the State of New 
York." It is to be hoped that past experiences 
had not driven the clergy to insert this in the 
call. During the one hundred and twelve years 
which have come and gone since then, the church 
began to respond to the needs of her country by 
using the country's language. The history of 
those days is not dramatic or spectacular. Min- 
isters came and went. A brick church was built 
in 1839, enlarged in 1872 and in 1913 the con- 
gregation of the church rose with an earnest 
effort under the guidance of Rev. Benjamin Jay 
Bush to beautify its house of worship. Such 
men as Stitt, Vennema, Fagg, and Huizinga, 

25 



men honored by the church at large, served as 
ministers in New Paltz. Each left his mark 
upon the community. The silent years are the 
most productive in history, and during the 
many uneventful years work of the King- 
dom progressed. Weak were made strong, the 
broken were bound, and devoted Christian 
men and women proved the divinity of human 
nature by living lives which shone with true 
Christian luster. 

Not least among the achievements of the 
past is the sending out of Rev. L. J. Shafer to 
Japan in 1912 as the missionary pastor of the 
church. This the church did while heavy de- 
mands were made upon its liberality for ex- 
tensive repairs. And in this she was true to the 
traditions of the past, and worthy of the match- 
less heritage which is the just pride of every 
Huguenot. 



26 




DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH BUILT IN 1839 



Our School 

HOW many know the story of the Bell — 
the Bell that hangs in the Normal School 
building and with its strident clanging, 
summons young seekers after knowledge up the 
hill? Time has not mellowed your voice, poor 
Bell, but we forgive you for you have seen many 
ups and downs in your day and you are the link 
that binds our new school with the past. 

Tell us how — just before Revolutionary times, 
wasn't it? — you were brought from the foundry 
in New York and hung proudly in the steeple 
of the new, the second stone church, for the 
primitive horn did not seem in keeping with a 
building so fine and big. Tell us how the brick 
church came and a new, sweet voiced bell, and 
you were banished to the cellar till some thrifty 
soul placed you in the stone school house and 
you began your educational career; how, later, 
you served in the brick public schoolhouse. 
Whisper how, when the public school was in 
disuse, you disappeared for a brief spell and how 
the village fathers rescued you from vandal 
hands out on the race track across the creek, 

27 



where your clanging started blue ribbons of the 
turf upon their swift careers. Scandalous, that 
you, a pious church bell, should have assisted at 
a horse race! What? You had it straight from 
the sexton? The domine himself? A domine 
of our church raced horses once, and won! 

Domine Bogardus was a man so straight- 
laced that he leaned over backwards a little, 
perhaps. We're not blaming him, because at 
his barn-raising he substituted a pitcher of cold 
water and pile of temperance tracts for the usual 
little brown jug; but, why should New Paltz 
young people on the way to the Plains to see 
the "Training" on the one gala day of the year 
make a detour of miles in order to avoid the 
parsonage? Yes, Domine Bogardus was very 
good indeed, and in those days horse-racing was 
looked down upon as one of the seven deadly 
sins. 

In some round-about way, perhaps in the bliss 
of ignorance, the Domine became the owner of 
a spirited horse that had been the favorite 
mount of a young sport, Louis DuBois, and that 
had often participated in contests of speed over 
the long level stretch of road on the Plains which 
served for a race course in the olden times. One 
Sunday when the Domine was jogging placidly 

28 




DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH REMODELED IN 187: 



home from afternoon service at New Hurley, as 
he struck this piece of road, who but the repro- 
bate Louis should come cantering up from be- 
hind? Shouting to the Domine's horse Louis 
spurred on his own, and away they both went 
down the track at breakneck speed, the Domine 
in advance. Check his horse he could not but 
hang on he did; and perhaps there was momen- 
tary pride in his heart though nothing but anger 
flashed from his eyes at Louis' conspirators 
stationed at the end of the course, who flung 
their hats into the air and shouted, "Hurrah for 
the Domine!" But it was not until he had left 
them far in the distance and reached the giant 
oak where the sutlers used to pitch their tents 
on Training Day that he succeeded in reining 
in his fiery charger. 

Yes, the bell might tell us much that is interest- 
ing educationally and otherwise, about little 
old New Paltz; though for information in regard 
to the French school masters who in earliest 
times held forth in the log cabin that did double 
duty as church and school house we must look 
elsewhere. 

Look! Here is the copy of a most interesting 
old French manuscript bearing the date 1689 and 
signed by the "resident proprietors of the twelve 

29 



parts of the village" certifying that — "Of our 
good will and to give pleasure to Jean Cottin, 
schoolmaster of the said Paltz, we have given 
him gratuitously a little cottage to enlarge for a 

home, situated at the end of the street 

near the large Thicket. We permit also the 
said Cottin, him and his likewise, to cut his fire- 
wood and wood for building where he shall find 
it convenient in the woods of the said Paltz, 
and this forever; also, we permit always the said 
Cottin, him and his, to turn into the woods. . . 
for pasturage two cows and their calves and a 
mare and her colt. . . . 

"Nevertheless we wish and intend that in 
case the said Cottin shall wish to sell the said 
cottage he shall not be able to sell it except to 
persons of good life and manners to whom we 
agree, and he also shall have the preference who 
is known as without limit approved. 

"We are not obliged to keep the said Cottin 
for school master longer than we find proper." 

Another paper dated 1700 and signed by the 
pastor and elder of our church testifies that 
"Mr Jean Tebenin having lived with us during 
the space of four years for school master and 
for the instruction of our children, has always 
done the duty of a good and true Christian, 

so 



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FAMOUS GIANT OAK OX PLAINS 



frequented our holy assemblies and partaken of 
the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper." And 
Jean Tebenin's will dated thirty years later and 
leaving his property to the church here, contains 
the request that his copy of the Bible be sold 
and the proceeds given to the poor in case the 
French language should ever cease to be used. 

If the French language should cease to be used! 
We can hardly comprehend the tragedy of those 
words to our ancestors in 1730, for, do what they 
might, their beloved mother tongue was giving 
place to the Dutch. And indeed, they had no 
weapons left with which to fight the calamity, 
since the old French schoolmasters were dying 
off and there were only Dutch ones to be had in 
their place. Just as the grandparents of many 
of us of this generation spoke only Dutch until 
they were sent to school and there learned Eng- 
lish, so, probably, the grandparents of our grand- 
parents prattled in French until at school from 
Dutch-speaking children and a Dutch-speaking 
schoolmaster they learned to use that language. 
How their elders resented this acquiring of a 
new tongue' by the younger generation is shown 
by a story that has come down from those days, 
of a child sent to an uncle's house to borrow a 
certain article. Being able to ask for it only 

31 



in Dutch, she was indignantly refused her request 
until she should go home and learn to ask in 
French for what she wanted. 

With the dying out of the French language 
in New Paltz there seems nothing especially 
noteworthy about its schools until the Academy 
was started almost a hundred years later. When 
the first stone church was torn down just before 
Revolutionary times its stones were drawn away 
to be used for the construction of a school house, 
though this was not built until many years 
afterward. Remodelled as a private residence 
after the erection of the brick public school 
building in 1874 it still stands on North Front 
Street. In its upper story, in 1828 a Classical 
School, where classical branches were given pref- 
erence to English ones, began to hold sessions. 
The providing of a liberal education for the 
rising generation was ever before the minds of 
our forefathers, and in providing for the present 
they knew not how well they built for the future. 
This Classical School was only the forerunner of 
the New Paltz Academy which began its career 
in 1833, destined to become, fifty years later, 
the State Normal School of New Paltz. 

The student who passed through the halls 
of the old Normal building saw a small framed 

32 



print hanging on the wall. This print bore the 
date of 1835 and was the prospectus of the New 
Paltz Academy. The Trustees give notice "that 
they have erected a spacious Academy and Board- 
ing-house. They consider this one of the best 
locations in the country. It is in the midst of 
a romantic, fertile and healthy country, retired 
from the noise and confusion as well as the 
temptations incident to thickly settled places. 
The communication with any part of the country 
is safe and easy. Mails pass and repass almost 
daily. Young ladies and gentlemen can be 
accommodated with board in respectable fam- 
ilies for $1.50 per week." 

The Academy enjoyed prosperity from the 
first under the able administration of Rev. 
Eliphaz Fay as principal, and soon it was found 
necessary to enlarge its building. During the 
later presidency of Dr. H. M. Bauscher, a most 
scholarly man, the school came into first rank 
among the academies of the State. In 1884, 
following soon after the Semi-Centennial cele- 
bration, the building was destroyed by fire. 
Undaunted, however, the community rose as 
one mind to the rebuilding of its school, under 
the able leadership of Principal F. E. Partington 
and Rev. Ame Vennema. The following year 



33 



Dr. Henry A. Balcom became principal, and in 
conjunction with the Board of Trustees was in- 
strumental in having the school converted into 
a State Normal School. In December 1885 the 
building was formally presented to the State 
for the establishment of a Normal and Train- 
ing School. Before February of the next year 
a Local Board and a provisional faculty with 
Dr. Eugene Bouton as principal, was ap- 
pointed. During the first term the number of 
students in all departments was eighty-nine. 
From this time on the growth of the school was 
so rapid that it was hardly well established be- 
fore the building was found to be entirely in- 
adequate. For a time the district school house 
was used for the Practice School and an old 
shop on the grounds for drawing and gymnastics. 
The time soon came, however, when these make- 
shifts could no longer be tolerated and in two 
years from the cession of the property to the 
State, an appropriation was secured for an addi- 
tion. This addition was known as the main 
building. Well furnished and equipped with 
the appliances that modern teaching demands, 
made beautiful by pictures and statuary, with 
a carefully chosen library accessible to the stu- 
dents at all times, with beautiful memorial win- 

34 



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dows, and other gifts of a grateful body of 
Alumni, it was for many years a school home to 
which hundreds of students will always look 
back affectionately as an ideal spot, loved for 
its beauty and its associations. 

Along with changes in the building came 
changes in the personnel of the faculty. In Sep- 
tember 1888 Dr. Frank S. Capen, a well known 
teacher of mathematics at Cortland, became prin- 
cipal. To the work so well begun by his prede- 
cessor, he brought an energy and capability, an 
unselfish devotion to the interests of his students, 
for which the graduates of that period will never 
cease to be grateful. Nothing could be a better 
training in efficiency than to be one of his pupils. 
At this time the school was very large. Old 
students will remember how halls and cloak- 
rooms were utilized to make room for increas- 
ing numbers. About this time, however, the 
length of the course was increased, the English 
course was abolished and training classes through- 
out the State were established. These changes 
decreased the number of students here as else- 
where. Further changes in educational policies 
followed. Up to this time the teaching in the 
Practice School was done entirely by the student 



35 



body. Students in the Normal and Academic 
departments were taught in the same classes, 
until the last year, when there were separate 
classes in methods and professional subjects. 
The teaching was carried on under the direction 
of principals of different departments, assisted 
by critic teachers. While this system was open 
to the objection that the child was sacrificed to 
the teacher, it gave us student teachers, trained 
in practical efficiency and the demand for them 
was then as now greater than the supply. Un- 
der the present system a trained teacher has 
charge of each grade and is assisted by pupil 
teachers, thus giving the students not only the 
opportunity to test their own powers, but to 
have the privilege of observing the work of a 
skilled teacher. 

In 1899 the school entered upon another dis- 
tinct period of its development under the princi- 
palship of Myron T. Scudder, A.M. Under his 
inspiration the school became a centre of activ- 
ity. No hours were too long, no task too heavy 
for enthusiastic students and teachers. Initia- 
tive and a sense of responsibility were encourag- 
ed and much latent efficiency was brought out. 
Manual Training and Domestic Science were 
introduced. A Kindergarten was added. The 

36 






school stood for the principle "that the schools 
of this country should afford training in cre- 
ating, obeying and enforcing wise regulations 
for self-government and that a school should 
be a democracy not a despotism." A system of 
school government, called the school city, was 
adopted. This, naturally, had both the virtues 
and defects of any real democracy. 

At this period the school was opened to about 
seventy-five Cuban girls sent here by their gov- 
ernment. Several Spanish-speaking teachers were 
added to the faculty. These Cuban girls in spite 
of a foreign language and new habits of life were 
for the most part earnest and conscientious. Ar- 
rangements were made to repeat the experiment, 
but the Cuban government was unable to appro- 
priate funds. Only one remained to graduate. 
Most of the others returned to Cuba to teach in 
their own schools. The new courses, new methods 
of teaching in Psychology, the training of several 
young men for work in the Philippines brought 
many distinguished visitors to the school, giving 
it close touch with the great educational move- 
ments of the outside world. 

In the midst of all this activity came a tragic 
interruption. In the spring of 1906 school 
closed for the Easter recess, to open again on a 

37 



Thursday. Tuesday night a fire broke out in 
the main building and before the morning dawn- 
ed a scene of desolation met the eye, with nothing 
but a pile of smoking ruins to mark the place 
of the labors and sacrifices of years. 

But fate had to deal with an undaunted 
spirit, so before sunrise plans were formulated 
for opening school at the appointed time. Rooms 
were secured, supplies hastily gotten together 
and on Thursday morning students and teachers 
returned to find, not a building, but a school 
thoroughly alive and ready for work. Thus 
for two and a half years, housed in churches, 
shops, public buildings, wherever there was a 
vacant room, the school carried on its usual 
activities. In spite of inconveniences, there 
were many bright spots. Mutual helpfulness 
abounded, the students and townspeople be- 
came better acquainted, inventive genius was 
stimulated and a strong sense of responsibility 
developed. 

It would be too long a story to tell how 
the appropriation for a new building was se- 
cured. Neighboring towns appeared as rivals 
for the school, but the vigorous action of the 
Board, the personal influence of our public- 
spirited citizens and constant pressure from the 

38 



Alumni, won the day, the victory was ours and 
another "spacious edifice" soon appeared, a 
veritable "light which is set upon a hill." The 
year of its completion brought its present prin- 
cipal, Dr. John C. Bliss of the State Department 
of Education. The growth and success of the 
school are so marked that still more additions 
are fast becoming indispensable. The school 
speaks for itself in its graduating classes of one 
hundred fifty or more each June. 

The combining of the Regents and the Depart- 
ment of Education brought some changes in the 
course of study. We now have a separate High 
School, with a four years' course, and a Normal 
Course of two years for which graduation from 
a High School is required. 

In this hasty review, it has been impossible 
to mention the members of the Local Board or 
the long line of teachers who have come and 
gone leaving a more or less deep impression on 
the school. Not one of the original faculty 
now remains in active service. For more than 
twenty-five years the devotion of our beloved 
A. K. Smiley, late President of the Board, form- 
ed a golden link in all this chain of events, the 
breaking of which is a permanent loss to the 
school. 

89 



Many of the graduates of today are the chil- 
dren of earlier graduates. Soon a third genera- 
tion will be climbing the hill. The heralds of 
the old French monarchy announced the death 
of the old King and the accession of a new one 
with the words — "The King is dead — Long live 
the King!" Student and teacher pass — Long 
live The New Paltz Normal. 



40 



Our Mountain 

TO the west of us lie "the mountains", our 
Shawangunk hills. Not like the casual ac- 
quaintance are they, seen today, forgotten 
tomorrow, but like the friends you love, known, 
to be kept in memory forever. Today one mar- 
vels at their beauty, tomorrow they surprise one 
with a surpassing glory. With every season 
of the year they put forth new color, with every 
hour of the day they reveal a new mood. Now a 
wandering cloud nestles close upon the hill- 
slope, and steals in and out among the valleys, 
drifting away into the unknown. Again, a veil 
of mist droops over the face of the hill and we 
are lost in wonder at the mystery she hides. 
Then, every field and meadow, every treetop 
and pathway approaches so closely in the clear 
air, one is tempted to call greeting to the moun- 
tain nymph. A rosy blush suffuses our hills at 
the first kiss of the morning. And when the 
day dies, she sends forth promise of a new dawn 
in a burst of color that bathes our whole moun- 
tain-side. Yea, you must winter and summer 
in our mountains, you must know them, then 

41 



will they speak to you in the language of the 
soul, then when you "lift your eyes unto the 
hills" will come strength from the God of the 
hills. 

Here Algonquin or Iroquois chief raised his 
eyes to Heaven and prayed to the Great Spirit. 
Here followed French Huguenot ensnared by 
memories of the land of his birth. And here 
will come youth and maiden from afar, to tarry 
awhile, to go again. Perchance here too some 
seer may be born at the shrine of the mountain 
to carry with him a gift to the world. The hills 
alone will know the tale, and the hills will hold 
their secret. 

The Shawangunk range is the northern spur 
of the Appalachian system, separating the Wall- 
kill Valley on the east from the Rondout Valley 
on the west. To the northwest lie the Cats- 
kills, blue in the distance. Mountain loveli- 
ness is enhanced by the charm of sparkling 
lakes. Held high above surrounding peaks, in 
deep pockets in the mountains, have the waters 
been caught, thwarted in their hope to join the 
sea. A "Lake-in-the-Sky" is Mohonk, true to 
its Indian name. 

Approaching the mountain from the Wallkill 
Valley, every turn of the road opens up new 

42 




ON SKY TOP 



vistas. From Memorial Gateway to Sky Top 
is an ever-changing panorama of beauty. At 
a rise of fifteen hundred feet above the sea, we 
look down into the Rondout Valley on the one 
hand, range upon range of the Catskills in view. 
To the other side the Wallkill winds in and 
out, and beyond are outlined the hills on either 
bank of the Hudson. Southward lies Minne- 
waska, the Trapps loom up unexpectedly, and 
ever and again beautiful Lake Mohonk like an 
emerald gem in rare setting holds the eye. 
Northward Bonticou, Mountain Rest, and Guy- 
ot's Hill reveal new glimpses of the blue ranges. 
Crag and crevice, bluff and boulder, lichen and 
laurel fill us with ever increasing wonder at the 
generosity of Mother Nature when she called 
into being our mountain. 

In search of a day's adventure, Mr. Alfred 
H. Smiley found Lake Mohonk an early summer 
day in 1869. Fascinated with its possibilities 
for development, he sent for his twin brother, 
Albert K., then head of the Friends' School of 
Providence, Rhode Island, to join him. To- 
gether they followed the narrow Indian trails. 
Together they climbed Sky Top. Lost in rap- 
ture as the eye ranged over the two valleys to 
the distant hills of sister states, the desire came 



is 



to them to obtain possession of this wonderland, 
this lake in the sky and to develop it for all 
beauty lovers who might come. Before an- 
other day dawned steps were taken to purchase 
it from a farmer who lived in the valley. This 
is the beginning of a venture which has given 
this locality an estate wonderful in its charm, 
and has made the name Mohonk known through- 
out all the land. From the original two hun- 
dred eighty acres it now comprises five thousand 
acres of mountain, lake and farmland. Fifty 
miles of excellent roads give a never-ending 
variety to pleasure driving. One of the early 
delights of the guests was the morning trips with 
Mr. Smiley, mountain stocks in hand, to ex- 
plore the neighboring ravines and forests. 
Little by little Indian trails grew into well-worn 
paths until today they wind in and out, a laby- 
rinthine maze for the seeker of the mysteries of 
the Shawangunks. The early vision has be- 
come reality. Scholar, artist, professional man 
and business man, the student, and the mother 
from her home have sought the mountain lake, 
for rest, for inspiration, have returned refreshed, 
strengthened for the demands of the busier life. 
Every year the summer months bring to our 

44 



mountains hundreds of the lovers of the quiet 
life and of the beauties of nature. 

Upon the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary 
of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Albert K. 
Smiley, the guests who had learned to love Mo- 
honk placed at the entrance of the estate the 
archway seen from New Paltz and known as the 
Memorial Gateway, a fitting token of esteem 
and love for the man whose name will ever be 
associated with Mohonk. 

In 1879 Mr. Albert K. Smiley was appointed 
by President Hayes as member of the Board of 
Indian Commissioners. Four years later Mr. 
Smiley invited for a conference to Mohonk a 
group of men and women interested in the better- 
ment of conditions for the Indian. Annually 
this conference has met ever since, broadening 
its scope in recent years to include other de- 
pendent peoples, exercising a strong influence 
in the creating of public sentiment, and in the 
revision of laws for the uplift of the less fortu- 
nate brother. Annually in the month of June 
since 1895 Mohonk has been the Mecca for dip- 
lomats and statesmen, in the discussion of the 
problem of International Arbitration. The far- 
reaching influence of these conferences is beyond 
the knowledge of our day. 

45 



Once, sitting beside his Lake-in-the-Sky, our 
Indian brother wafted on high the blue smoke 
from his peace-pipe. Today to him, a stranger 
in his own land, the white man reaches out the 
brotherly clasp of friendship. Once the Indian 
Holy Man prayed for peace among his people. 
Today his white brother breathes a prayer to 
the All-Father for peace among the children of 
men. The hills break their silence. Listen to 
the Voice of the hills. 



46 




VIEW LEAVING THE HOUSE 



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